Monday, July 28, 2008

What a lovely Saturday we had at our local County Fair this past weekend. It was beautiful weather, and not to humid. All three kids had their crafts entered in the fair this year for judging. Ali's favorite item this year was her first attempt at a hand-made doll. I did help with the face, she was nervous about working so hard on it, then ruining it with the markers. She ended up entering 11 different items, including two different batches of cookies. She tried a new oatmeal raisin recipe that put mine to shame. I think she is now in charge of making oatmeal cookies.

Matt likes making projects, but is always rushing through them to get on to the next one. His projects are good, but I know they could be so much better if he took his time. The black dalmatian picture frame is his. He used a frame I found in the basement, and an old picture book with the pages already torn. His first attempt at decoupage was pretty good.

The shoe box people are his too. If you give my kids the clay pasta roller and lots of fimo clay, they will be quiet all day! All three kids love to play with clay. I tend to stock up on more clay when it goes on sale.

This is the first time Timmy has entered anything in the fair. It is normally hard for the little ones to win, due to the age of 12 and under all being lumped together. He loves that digital camera, and I had asked him to take a picture of my lettuce coming up this spring. It was actually in focus, and he ended up winning third place for it! He other picture didn't place, but the good thing is every entry gets a participation ribbon no matter what. He will be back next year with harder projects I'm sure.

But the reason we went on Saturday, was for the Big Wheel Contest. Timmy was entered in the 3 year old boys, and the winner of the race gets a trophy and the big wheel they were racing on. Ali had been "training" Timmy all week to get him to go faster. The above clip is of the second heat. He ended up taking third place over all. In the semi-final race, his foot slipped off the pedal at the start and he lost that race. He was happy to get his yellow ribbon, and all the kids got to pick out a pop. He said he wanted to try again next year. I feel competition is good for kids, especially if they don't win all the time. I was proud of how he handled not winning the big wheel. There were some children there who did not handle it with much grace.

In the end we spent $50 to get into the fair, corn dogs, cheese curds, taco salad, and tacos. We brought our own water bottles, so spent nothing on beverages. We got two new reusable bags for our groceries, a clip board made out of recycled laundry bottles, tons of pencils for the next school year, and tons of good memories. The kids ended up winning $32.00 on their entries and all the ribbons. I unfortunately did not have time to enter anything this year. The blue building where the adults show their projects is looking more empty every year. Very sad! So I will take my free time this next year to start working on projects earlier. Hopefully I will have lots of picture of my projects here next year!